The Stars Are Right: Acthung! Cthulhu

 It is released!!

That's right, it's Acthung! Cthulhu for the PDQ system. Look at the big guy up there, he's never been happier. Just to recap, this is a stand-alone RPG product using the PDQ system which includes new rules for combat, gear and (of course) insanity and madness. Along with the rules you get the Three Kings adventure, the first adventure in Modiphius' Zero Point campaign series. If you're interested you can get the pdf (currently 5 bucks off) from RPGnow right here.

And of course I'm still looking for playtesters for Battle Royale, head over to zombietoast.com if you're interested.

Dread: It's like 80's night, with Zombies!

You never know what sort of concepts will set your players off and during this game session I found out one such "button" for one of my on-again-off-again gaming groups: Zombie Apocolypse...in the 80s!

The moment they heard this the radio was tuned to an all-80's channel, hair was tousled...costumes were worn. I was frightened.

The game was Dread (a jenga-based, horror rpg) and I was trying it out with something fairly simple and straightforward and I set it in the early 80s to take advantage of Cold War paranoia...I did not know what I was getting myself into.

You can listen to the game here

Still on the lookout for playtesters for Battle Royale!

Playtesting

Now that my work for Acthung! Cthulhu has moved to the layout stage I'm ready to get the ball rolling on the playtest for Battle Royale!

The playtest is going to be completely open, anyone who wants to can get onboard and help me out, just make sure to let me know how it went. The playtesting packet includes the rules for Battle Royale's "default" Power Level: Cinematic, suitable for action-movie style martial arts. I've also included an optional short, intro adventure and a collection of pregenerated martial artists.

If you want to take part and help move the game one step closer to completion then you can go to my website http://zombietoast.com/ and download the playtesting material and get started. If you've got the time feel free to keep me updated via your social media of choice.

Wreck-It Ralph

Just saw Wreck-It Ralph last night. That was a hefty shot of nostalgia, pointed right at the arcade generation (which I definitely am), I'm sure somewhere on the internet someone is already hard at work detailing and cataloging every single cameo and game reference in that movie. Because that's what the internet is for.

However, Ralph is more than just nostalgia bait fortunately, and it's actually quite a good movie. Although it probably sets the record for the highest licensing fees (or product placement depending on who's paying who) and it's not just video games. However, almost all of the fanservice (no, not that kind of fanservice) can be found within the first quarter of the movie and the rest of it focuses on Ralph's story with original characters and game worlds. So you get your nostalgia hit to start you off, then you can ride that through the movie's pretty visuals and great humor. I'll avoid spoilers and not go into details, but I will say that I loved it all and it had a great sense of humor and a story that was interesting (but also surprisingly dark at times.)

The voice-acting casting choices were probably the high point of the movie for me. Casting Kenneth from 30 Rock as Fix-it Felix was absolutely perfect (and no, I don't mean Jack Mcbrayer, Felix is clearly being played directly by Kenneth). Sarah Silverman was another great pick for Venelope Von Sweet, a character who could have been really annoying but ended up being terrific. Ralph himself was great, but was almost outshone by the really colorful and insane characters he's surrounded by, but he makes up for it by being extremely likable.

Of course, the high point of the movie for NJ was at the very start: the Paperman animated short thrilled the hell out of her. She's a big fan of 2D animation and hopes to see more 2D (or quasi-2D as the case may be) stuff from Pixar in the future. 

Social Media Blitz

So, elections are over and after months of following everyone on every single social media site out there I think I know what my readers want...more social media!

In preparation for finishing Battle Royale I'm getting ready to take my place in the internet as one of thousands D-list creators in a niche hobby on the internet. And that means a twitter feed, a facebook page and for good measure a google+ page. I'll be using these for announcements and updates on my work with Battle Royale (and future RPG projects) and you can use them to let me know what you think, heckle me or ask for muffin recipes. This blog will be used mainly as a personal website so it'll remain informal and poorly organized.

More news will be coming soon as I get my act together.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everybody! This is the first time in a few years that we've actually had a significant number of people come trick-or-treating around. We actually managed to make a dent in our candy supply. Fortunately we were prepared and actually went through the effort of wearing costumes this year as well:

This is NJ dressed up as scientist-princess bubblegum. And this was me:

This costume started out as a fairly elaborate idea that gradually got pared down as bits didn't fall into place or proved impractical. Originally it was going to be a burlap sack with a yellow smiley face painted on the front and a bloody apron. All these items could have been easily and cheaply obtained online with proper planning and forethought...but instead I tried to get them through thrift-store browsing, something that proved oddly impossible. The final result is not nearly as impressive and sadly, turned into a completely unintentional "evil walmart" costume without my realizing it until afterwards. Ah well, always next year.

So...been quiet recently. Lots of work with a new position at my "real" job. Also been working to try and get things together for some future plans...so not much time for blogging. Sadly it'll be a while before I get around to checking out the latest D&D Next news or anything similar. But hopefully there will be good news soon.

Shameless Plug: The GM’s Field Guide to Players

Or perhaps the proper term is "second-degree plugging". I just wanted to point folks to the GM's Field Guide To Players. It's a sourcebook on how to know and handle your players as a GM with cover art by my lovely wife, NJ Huff.

This is especially good news since NJ is still recovering from a significant injury which has prevented her from working on her art for about a year. So completing this piece of art was a big deal for her (and getting paid for it didn't hurt). Since you probably can't see much of the cover above, here's a larger version (click for full-size).

NJ will also be working on a new cover for Jade Arbuckle's other book, so I'll make sure to include that in the future. So, check the book out and any RPG authors out there should certainly keep NJ in mind for their own projects.

Getting Organized: RPG Chopshop

I'm trying to sweep up a bit, get things organized and so on. So I'm going to create a few posts where certain categories can be easily stored. This post will serve as the repository of all my RPG tinkering and system conversions.



PDQ

• Costume Quest For PDQ 
•  An unofficial table-top conversion of Double Fine's awesome Halloween game. 

• PDQ# for Star Wars
• A brief guide for using PDQ# to play Star Wars
• PDQ Exalted 
• An over-ambitious Exalted conversion, includes charms and sorcery for Solars, Lunars, and Dragon-Bloods
• Tomb Of Horrors for PDQ 
• The Tomb of Horrors with rules for PDQ, Pathfinder and Savage Worlds.

 

Savage Worlds

• Dark Sun For Savage Worlds 
• The burnt world of Athas for Savage Worlds. Includes races, arcane backgrounds, edges and powers.
• New Powers 
• Some new powers for Savage Worlds. 
• Savage Worlds: Aberrant
• A super-hero system for Savage Worlds based on White Wolf's Aberrant setting. 

• Savaged Eberron
• The Eberron setting for Savage Worlds, includes races, edges and arcane backgrounds. 

Tentacles, Nazis and PDQ!

I come bearing awesome news today. Have you heard of Achtung! Cthulhu? It's a very interesting Lovecraftian setting taking place in the shadows of World War Two. The first A!C product has already been released, the first in a series of episodic adventures for a campaign of tentacles and mad science called Zero Point. The first adventure is called Three Kings and it's been released for both Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG and for Reality Blur's Realms of Cthulhu Savage Worlds system.

Well, soon there will be another version of Three Kings, this time for PDQ and it'll be done by me! Well, at least the mechanics will, the adventure itself will still be Sarah Newton's great original adventure. However, A!C for PDQ is going to be more than just a converted adventure, it's going to be a stand-alone product featuring a new iteration of the PDQ system that I have tweaked for Lovecraftian horror. So it's a great, two-in-one package: a new version of everyone's favorite fast and flexible system along with a great adventure fighting Nazis and things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Just to give you a taste, here are some things that you can expect in this new version of PDQ:

• A grittier, deadlier system for damage and recovery for "traditional" Cthulhu-themed gaming, but including rules to adjust the dials for a pulpier, action game. 
• A system for vehicles and scale for when you need to mow down deep ones with a tank or dog-fight shantak birds. 
• An easy-to-use system for fear and madness. 
• A simple system for weapons and equipment that helps emphasize the deadliness of WW2 while avoiding excessive rules or record-keeping. 
• And of course, that's not all. 

If you want to hear more about A!C check out Modiphus' facebook page or this podcast interview. I look forward to bringing you more news as it gets closer to the release date.

Party PDQ pt 2: Heroquest-PDQ

So, while I was working on the party-game version of PDQ from the last post I ran across the old Heroquest boardgame while looking for inspiration. Well, I remembered playing Heroquest as a kid, even before I started playing RPGs and the thick veil of nostalgia ensured that I would be looking no further.

So, I tracked down an online version of the board with high enough resolution to load into Maptools, downloaded a pdf of some of the heroquest "quests", set up the map and created some suitable heroes for my players to choose from and I figured I would share them. 

A few things (like the names of homelands) are taken from the Questers of the Middle Realms setting, and it inspired the very simple magic system. Essentially every type of magic is quite broad and lets the character pull off a lot of extra tricks but it's reduced by one Rank (starting at Average rather than Good), with the option to "burn" a Heroism point in order to pull off big, impressive magical feats like setting a whole room on fire or saving the life of a nearly dead character.